


you hear a passing conversation

by valety



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, POV Second Person, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-26
Updated: 2016-05-26
Packaged: 2018-07-10 09:41:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6978172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/valety/pseuds/valety
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chara contemplates injustice, and Asriel shows Chara certain areas in Waterfall.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you hear a passing conversation

**Author's Note:**

> would this conversation actually have lasted so long in the echo flowers if it had been as old as chara and asriel???? probably not. do I care??????????? no. it's called ~ARTISTIC LICENCE~
> 
> warnings for brief references to self-harm, mild suicidal ideation, and manipulation

The flowers that can be grown Underground are limited. There’s no sun, after all, outside of the occasional crack of light that manages to slip through from above. Those blossoms that somehow manage to grow anyway are usually strange, shrivelled, discoloured versions of their surface selves, and a part of you kind of hates those twisted flowers for being such a shallow imitation of one of the few good things you left behind on the surface.

Still, you can’t _completely_ hate them. After all, they’re warped in a way that seems almost familiar. On more than one occasion, you find yourself feeling almost sympathetic towards the struggling begonias you find growing amongst rock.

The king’s garden is beautiful in comparison, but it’s an artificial beauty, an unnatural and unsatisfying one. The flowers Asgore grows can only be maintained due to the magic he pours into them, after all, and maybe it’s no problem for a boss monster to sustain such a thing—you wouldn’t know, you guess—but as much as you love flowers, you hate that it’s apparently necessary. Why does Asgore even bother, when it always seems to leave him so exhausted? What’s the _point?_

It’s about hope, Asriel had said the one time he’d tried to explain it to you, in a way that made it clear he was reciting something he’d been told a dozen times before but didn’t really get himself. It’s about giving monsters something to believe in. See? We can have something beautiful, too. Our lives can be just as rich as the lives of humans on the surface. Our king and queen can take care of us as easily as they take care of these flowers.

It’s not like you know much about this sort of thing. It’s not like you have any right to say. It’s not like your opinion _matters_ _._ But you wonder, sometimes, why the flowers that grow Underground can’t be enough—why Asgore believes the illusion of fulfilment is worth making himself sick—whether it would be better for monsters to somehow learn to love what they already have, or to make a push towards the surface and finally reclaim the real thing.

You don’t know what the answer is. But surely something, _anything,_ would be better than rotting in complacence underneath a mountain and pretending everything is fine, that no problem exists, that nothing needs to change. That the imitation of life is just as good as life itself.

Still, in the end, you’re just a kid, and although your thoughts can become a little complicated sometimes, in the end, it all leads back to something simple. More often than not, that ‘something simple’ is anger. But it’s a funny sort of anger these days—a righteous kind, one without a target.

You think of Asriel and that awful aching loneliness of his, the loneliness that drives him to cling to you like no one has ever clung to you before. You think of Toriel and all the kindness she has shown you, the you who cannot possibly deserve it. You think of Asgore spending so much power on his folly of a garden and how unwilling he seems to be to let it go, to sacrifice even the smallest symbol of his people’s hope.

They’re sentimental sort of musings, and though you burn with irritation at the thought of such kind people being trapped without a sky forever, you can’t imagine what to do. There’s no one Underground you hate, meaning all you can do is worry and fidget and fret about the injustice of it all—that humans should be free to revel in their gardens while the ones who truly deserve them have to try and make do with feeble imitations.

It’s anger without a focus, and you’ve never been very good at dealing with that sort of thing. When angry at other people, you can smile and think vile thoughts about them. When angry at yourself, nails and blades can offer you release. But here, without a target—without even your self-loathing as a shield—it’s left to fester like a wound infected.

But then a day comes where you and Asriel are playing in the garden while Asgore works.

You’re swordfighting with sticks you found, but then you catch a glimpse of the hedge of roses behind Asriel, and you stop.

Roses shouldn’t grow here, you think, let alone look so beautiful. Roses can be difficult to grow even on the surface, and for them to be thriving like this despite the lack of sunlight and fresh air means that Asgore has been using far more magic than is reasonable again.

Your stomach twists. You can feel it, that old familiar prickle of irritation, but you can’t figure out if you’re mad at Asgore for doing something stupid or mad at the world for making it seem necessary.

You only realize that you’ve dropped your sword when you feel Asriel’s hand slipping into your empty palm, drawing you back into the present. You meet his gaze and try to smile reassuringly, but you don’t think you do it right; his brows knit even further and the look of worry only deepens.

Asriel opens up his arms to you, and with a sigh, you let yourself fall into them.

At some point, he seems to have privately declared himself to be your protector. He’s not very good at it—your worst enemy is yourself, and Asriel is only ever there after the fact, when you’ve already let yourself become reduced to hysterics by your twisted thoughts and painful memories. But you appreciate the effort, you guess, and you’re not about to start refusing hugs. He’s soft, after all, soft and warm, and you think sometimes that it would be nice to carve a proper space inside him for you to settle in forever.

By the time your breathing settles down, you pull away, thinking to reclaim your sword and to resume the game. But Asriel doesn’t drop your hand—instead, he asks, “What’s wrong?”

It feels like a breach of etiquette for him to outright _ask_ instead of to presume the way he often does. You don’t have an answer ready, and your tongue seems to trip along the way as you fumble for one, until finally you simply say, “I hate the flowers here.”

Asriel looks startled, then quickly glances back towards his father, who doesn’t appear to have heard. Turning back around—looking almost frightened—he says, “I thought you liked flowers.”

You think of how he helped you draw a picture of one once, of how he brings them to you sometimes, of how the two of you have spent long afternoons together weaving crowns to wear in your games of Knight and Liege.

“I do,” you say. “But not today. Not these ones.”

You don’t know how to explain it. The injustice of it all is ringing through you so powerfully that you feel as though you’re vibrating, and it’s the sight of these flowers—too perfect, too pristine, too _much—_ that’s leaving you so angry. You guess that means you hate them. Who knows? _You_ certainly don’t.

Asriel bites his lip. You catch a glimpse of tiny pointed teeth, small and white and perfect, and you’re struck with the urge to touch them, to see if they might prick you and make you bleed. You hold back, clenching your fists as tightly as you can and driving your nails into your palms instead.

You see him swallow. You see the nervous flicker of his eyes. Clearly Asriel is working up the courage to say something big—something big for _him,_ at any rate—and so you force yourself to resist the impulse to squish his stupid cheeks and hear him bleat.

Finally, Asriel beckons for you to lean forward.

You do so, curious despite yourself.

His mouth brushing against your ear, he whispers, “I know where there are better flowers.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

That night, long past the hour you are meant to be asleep, Asriel touches your arm.

You’re already wide awake, of course, and you slip out of bed readily. When you do, he takes your hand, and like that, he begins to guide you through the twisting corridors of New Home. There are guards on patrol, but most of them are easily distracted by an expertly tossed stick or a friendly pat on the head. Soon enough, you’ve managed to slip out of the palace and into the night.

Asriel doesn’t let go even once as he leads you by the hand through a maze of twisting caverns and gnarled, barren trees. You almost crack a joke about him wanting an excuse to hold your hand, but you think better of it; if you make fun of him, then he’ll let go, and you like having an excuse to hold his hand as well.

“This is all very daring of you,” you observe as Asriel helps you climb over a fallen sentry station. You mentally weigh the pros and cons of pretending to slip so that you may fall on him, but you decide not to; he might catch you, but you might also knock him over and into the mud.

Asriel chest puffs out with pride. “I do this a lot, actually,” he says in a bragging sort of tone. “Mom and dad never let me go anywhere by myself, cuz they think I might get lost, so I learned how to sneak out.”

“Very impressive.”

He seems to puff up even further. You offer a faint smile of approval, wondering if it would be too much for you to pat his head.

But it’s strange. You’ve had far less trouble getting here than you would have thought, and Asriel seems so confident that it’s obvious he means it when he says he’s done this many times before.

You wonder—are Toriel and Asgore _really_ so naïve and unassuming that they don’t think to keep a closer eye upon their only child? That they think the greatest threat to him is the possibility of getting lost?

Or is monsterkind really so gentle, so compassionate, so peace-loving, that a pair of children can wander all the seediest back alleys and caverns that their world has to offer and still come to no harm whatsoever?

On the surface, you never could’ve snuck out. You knew better than to trust the humans you’d encounter. Yet here, wandering the labyrinth with Asriel in a world that any reasonable person would find terrifying, you feel…safe.

Asriel guides you all the way to a hidden river of black water. There, a hooded figure stands upon a small wooden boat, looking grimmer than Charon. You might have been almost afraid, but then Asriel gives a friendly “Howdy” and the river person bows their head in return, a gesture that feels almost like a smile.

The better flowers Asriel had mentioned are in Waterfall, apparently; one of the many areas of the Underground that you’ve yet to see in person. Toriel and Asgore had mentioned once that you might like it there, and that they’d like to take you someday, but that they didn’t feel comfortable letting you go so far alone.

“They say the same thing to me,” Asriel had said the other day when you had told him this. “Which is dumb, cuz they’re _never_ not busy, which means I _never_ get to go, and also there’s a person with a boat now who can take us back and forth. They seem nice, and they sing, and their boat is a dog sometimes, so I think we should be allowed to go ourselves. I mean, we’re not _kids.”_

You’d almost laughed at that, but there was a certain logic to his argument. If the river person had a dog boat, then of course they could be trusted—anyone who likes dogs that much is bound to be safe. And if you’re taken there by them, then you’re not really going alone, are you?

The ride is silent, outside of the river person’s humming— _t_ _ra la la, tri li li, tre le le._ It’s unusual for you and Asriel to go so long without speaking, but there’s something about the atmosphere of the boat that makes the silence feel natural and warm.

When you disembark, you half expect them to demand payment—a vow of some kind, two gold coins, a firstborn child, something along those lines. But they simply announce “here we are” and give another solemn nod as Asriel waves goodbye.

You follow him into the depths of Waterfall.

Waterfall is, as the name suggests, wet. It’s wet and dark and blue and black, and as Asriel leads you through it, you wonder what kind of flowers could possibly be growing here, where not even the barest hint of sunlight manages to creep on through. You picture pondweed and water lilies, moss and fungus sprouting from mud. From the way your footsteps occasionally sink into the path, you can’t imagine being that far off.

“We’re almost there,” Asriel says, a note of excitement in his voice. You don’t reply. You’re too busy thinking of mud and weeds and struggling for life without the sun.

But then Asriel stops, and when he does, you stop as well.

Your breath hitches.

You’re in a field of flowers, shining with the softest, cleanest light that you have ever seen, painting the entire cavern blue, blue, blue. Golden lights like fireflies drift from blossom to blossom, and everything is quiet pools of dark and heavy light, and in the distance, you can hear the quiet murmuring of what you think is water.

But then the flower nearest to you whispers, _this is an echo flower._

“That flower just talked to me,” you say.

Asriel laughs. “Yeah,” he says, kneeling before it and stroking one of the large, glowing blue petals with the pad of his finger _._ “I guess somebody was explaining them before we came? But, um, yeah. These are echo flowers. They always repeat the last thing they heard. Isn’t that cool?”

_Isn’t that cool?_ the flower whispers. _Isn’t that cool? Isn’t that cool?_

“That _is_ cool,” you agree, kneeling beside Asriel so that you can see the flower better. You stroke one of the petals as well; it feels like silk under your touch, and your struck with the urge to tear it off. Loves me, loves me not.

It’s more than cool. It’s almost painfully beautiful, this cavern of light and whispers underneath the earth. How does something as strange and lovely as this _happen?_

“I come here a lot because…because it’s kind of nice, just to listen to them sometimes,” Asriel says, sounding bashful. “It’s almost like…like I’m surrounded by other people. And I can pretend they’re talking to me, and I can answer back.”

His eyes are distant, as though he’s forgotten that he’s even speaking aloud. But then his eyes immediately widen and he turns to you, pleading, “ _Please_ don’t tell anyone I said that! I know it’s a really pathetic thing to do, and loserish, and…”

“It’s okay,” you interrupt, more gentle than you’d ever thought that you could be. “I…kind of used to do the same thing. But we didn’t have echo flowers on the surface, so I’d just talk to myself. Or I’d read out loud, and pretend the characters were other people. It was better than being alone.”

It’s one of the most private things you’ve ever revealed about yourself, and you immediately feel yourself grow rigid, as though bracing for impact. But when you glance at Asriel, he’s staring at you almost reverently.

It’s strange. You don’t know why he’d stare at you like that, not when you’ve just admitted something so very odd about yourself, and the flower whispers, _better than being alone._

 “So…you got lonely too?” Asriel asks, voice soft.

You shrug. You suppose that _lonely_ is one word for it.

“That’s…kind of weird, actually,” he says with a weak chuckle _._ “I…I always thought the surface was so _big_ , and so _full,_ that…well, how could anyone get lonely up there?”

But it doesn’t matter how big or full a world is, you think. Not if it’s not full of anything worthwhile. And it doesn’t matter how worthwhile something is, not if it doesn’t have a place to grow without relying on another’s sacrifice. Neither one of those situations is balanced; neither one of those situations is _right._

How can you restore the balance?

“Are you happy here?” you ask.

Asriel is silent.

Then, a moment later: “Yes.”

_He hesitated,_ something in you whispers.

“I wasn’t,” you say, and Asriel looks startled. “The surface may have been big, but It wasn’t very nice,” you continue. “But that was mostly because of the people there, I think. I was lonely because I didn’t really have anyone I cared about. I think things would have been a whole lot better if there were monsters around.”

Silence. The distant rush of water. The murmuring of flowers.

“But there are monsters _here,”_ Asriel says, voice faltering. “And…and things aren’t really _that_ great down here, are they?”

You shrug: a careless gesture. You feel like cat pushing a china plate towards the edge of a table.

“What’s not great about it?” you ask, affecting a puzzled air. “Isn’t everybody happy?”

Asriel frowns, gnawing on his lip.

“I…I think, sometimes…” he begins, speaking slowly, as though uncertain of his own opinion, as though it’s one he’s never vocalized before. “That maybe…people aren’t as happy as they want to be down here.”

“Hm,” you say with a thoughtful nod, and Asriel perks up.

“Everybody acts like it, but it feels like everyone’s pretending,” he continues. “And, well…that must mean the surface is better, isn’t it? If nobody is really happy here? It’s not like we have anywhere _else_ to go. It…it feels like…like everything would be better if we could just…”

And he trails off.

Then, in a voice heavy with resignation, he adds, “But if you weren’t happy there, then maybe _nowhere’s_ really all that good. Everyone keeps waiting for things to get better, but maybe that’ll never happen. Maybe this really _is_ the best there is.”

“That’s not true,” you answer sharply. You see Asriel flinch, but you can’t be bothered to smother your anger with a smile; this is too important. “Things would definitely improve for monsters if they could live on the surface. And if monsters were there, then the surface would be better, too. The problem with the surface is _people._ They don’t deserve any of the things they’ve stolen from you, and the world deserves better than to be stuck with stupid humans for eternity.”

_Eternity,_ the flower sings. _Stupid humans._

“What…kind of things?” Asriel asks after a moment.

“Things like flowers,” you say. You imagine fields of colorful bells swaying on the breeze and leaves of bright young green, not simply withered red and brown “Your dad loves flowers so _much,_ Asriel, but he has to push and push and _push_ himself just to keep his stupid garden alive. Nobody on the surface appreciates them the way he would. The way a _monster_ would.”

“But it’s not _that_ bad, is it?” he says. “And we have stuff like echo flowers instead.”

“They’re nice,” you concede. “But it’s not fair that they’re all you get. And there are other things, too, like stars.”

“We have stars too,” Asriel says. “We have a wishing room full of them. Or, well…it’s full of stones. But they sparkle like stars, and we can pretend. That’s good enough.”

He says it like it’s something he’s been told a thousand times before, something that he still doesn’t quite believe, and you picture glimmering stones embedded in the walls, shining like diamonds sewn on velvet. Beauty in its own right, but not the same, never the same, only ever visited by monsters who have to smile and pretend it’s just as good as the stars they’ll never see again or have never seen at all.

How many times must a person say it’s _good enough_ for them to finally believe it?

“Can you show me the wishing room?” you ask.

Something like relief crosses Asriel’s expression. “Yeah!” he says quickly. “Yeah, I…come on, it’s this way!”

He stands, and you stand as well so that you can grab his hand and entwine your fingers with his. He hesitates for just a moment, eyes widening as he looks at you, but then he smiles and the two of you begin to cut across the field of flowers, past the rustling of unfamiliar voices.

“You called it a wishing room,” you say as Asriel tugs you along.

“Cuz it’s for wishes,” he says, matter-of-fact. “Monsters used to wish on stars all the time. We use the stones now, but it’s the same thing, pretty much.”

“So?” you ask, mouth curling into a grin, giving his hand a gentle squeeze.

“So what?”

“So? Don’t you have any wishes to make?”

You expect him to squeak, to blush and turn away, to instantly fall into protestations. But instead he gives a contemplative little hum, then says, “Just one, but…it’s kind of stupid.”

 “Don’t say that!” you say as coaxingly as you can. “Come on, I promise I won’t laugh.”

Another hum. Asriel turns his gaze on you, eyes narrowing ever so slightly.

“If I say my wish…” he says slowly; you can practically see the gears turning in his head. “You promise you won’t laugh at me?”

You feel like a cat watching a china plate fall.

Out loud you say, “Of course I won’t laugh!”

For a while, he is silent, expression thoughtful, eyes distant. His hand in yours feels too small to be real, too small to be yours, and you wonder what he’d do if you told him your own wish.

Then, in a voice that sounds impossibly far away, he says, “Someday, I’d like to climb this mountain we’re all buried under. Standing under the sky, looking at the world all around me…that’s my wish.”

You can’t help it: you begin to laugh.

“…hey, you said you wouldn’t laugh at it!” Asriel cries, indignant. He drops your hand as though burned, taking a step back.

Still giggling, you reach for it once more. On a whim, you lift it to your face, pressing it against your cheek.

“Sorry,” you say. “It’s just funny…that’s my wish, too.”

From the way his eyes immediately widen, you know what he’s imagining; standing underneath the starry sky of an empty world, just you and him and monsterkind, no callous, selfish humans left to taint the beauty and the freedom they have not deserved.

You know he thinks you mean that you want to climb the mountain as well, but what you want is for him and his family alone. After all, you gave up the right to a future when you ran away.

But he can’t understand that, can he?

And somehow, that seems the funniest thing of all.

You are giggling.

Slowly, hesitantly, Asriel begins to laugh as well. A little uncertainly, as though he doesn’t quite understand what the joke is, and he’s an idiot, _such_ an idiot, and you think that you might cry.

You let your hands fall while still clasped together, and on an impulse, you begin to run. He squawks and flails and stumbles, but then he falls into place beside you, and the two of you are running through the cavern of the wishing room, towards those distant stars that might not be that distant after all.

Something in you feels…settled, somehow, although you can’t with any certainty say why. It feels as though your heart is burning bright with some newfound resolve, or maybe with determination. Whatever it may be, it had not been there before, and you don’t think you can stop smiling.

Your dream is not your own. Your dream is for all monsterkind. You are the future of monsters, humanity be damned. You will find a way to end this chain of _good enough_ and _not that bad._ You will see that everybody gets what they deserve.

For now, that will your secret whispered to an echo flower, your wish made upon an almost-star, and someday, maybe, you will find a way to make that wish come true.


End file.
